Sick on the Road

Thank goodness for my doctor and he being on call on Labor Day Weekend!  I knew what the problem was and all I needed was an antibiotic but a holiday weekend presents a problem.  I did not work yesterday for I was up the night before and I was feeling terrible.  It always happens on a weekend or better yet a holiday weekend.  Remember the car trouble on July 4th?????  I called my Connecticut doctor's answering service.  John looked in our local phone book for open clinics. There are none on Labor Day in Spearfish.  I had to wait for several hours but, bless his heart, my doc was on call this weekend.  He called back, listened to my problem and called in a prescription.  I feel so much better today for it has been 24 hours since the medication start and I was sure lucky the stars aligned properly.  I am also lucky to have a doc that understands who I am and what I am doing.  He knew me long enough to listen and go outside the box.  He listened last year when I was having a big problem with medication and yesterday.  He is a keeper!!!!

I Now Live With an Old Man

   HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JOHN!  He turned 70 yesterday.  I am younger now!  My time will come at Christmas.  Then we are both the same age.
   We have been busy with volunteering and the roof on the MH leaked big time.   I was in the bathroom 2 days mopping up the waterfall created in the light above the mirror because of rain.  We have not had any hint of trouble before.  It rained hard with windy storms in Devils Tower but never had a hint of a problem.  Why now???  We made an appointment with an RV repair in Belle Fouche and had to pack up for traveling.  I hate to do that for just a day!!!  The technician could not find anything on the roof so he just caulked two places he thought might need caulking.  John also had a valve he tried replacing in the water heater replaced by the technician.   While there John asked to have the toilet flush valve looked at.  It was reacting slow to close but was working.  Well, the technician working on the toilet broke a plastic part that was not replacable so we needed a new toilet.  I was not happy.  We traveled to Rapid City to pick up the new toilet because it would not come in until the next day if the RV place ordered the toilet.  We would have no toilet until then.  It was a quick change after our initial travel of two hours. I wanted the same color we had, beige, so it was a different model toilet that I do not like (cheaper with a white sprayer anyway).  It went in very easily but the result makes me unhappy.  I should have picked the white replacement toilet just like we had but in the white color. We paid for the new toilet and the sealing of the roof and changing of the valve, $310-(very inexpensive with $210 for the new toilet) - no toilet labor.  You live and learn!!!!  End of story I hope.   Now I am looking for a good rain to prove we solved the original problem!!!!!!

Custer State Park & McNinney Fish Hatchery

On our days off this week we went exploring the Black Hills one day and went on a scheduled fish hatchery excursion the next.  First we went to Bear Country USA.  Since I have not seen a wild black or grizzly bear I might as well go on a drive through a zoo to see bears.  We have free passes to most things in the Black Hills because we volunteer.  We have been to Custer State Park before but not on the Needles Highway so we traveled through Custer also.

The fish hatchery tour was a state of South Dakota fish hatchery, 15 minutes away from DC Booth, a partner of DC Booth Historic Fish Hatchery. National Fish & Wildlife, whom we volunteer for, is a partner as well as many others including the town of Spearfish.  That is why we are given sites in the town owned campground next to the hatchery.

We live in the park which is well used and loved by locals as well as tourists.  Wedding are held here at the hatchery (Saturday I will be at the Booth House and the garden behind it is where the wedding takes place) and weddings also take place at a beautiful falls portion of Spearfish Park (I saw one).  A welcome luncheon in the park pavilion for the teachers of Spearfish was taking place today.  There was food, music, and speeches for an in service day at the beginning of the school year.  Great Idea!!!!

Black bears walking to the feeding of bread.  No grizzly here.
  Just one baby grizzly in with the baby animals.  I did not take picture

The Needles Highway in Custer State Park

We traveled through very narrow passes between spires
and went through one tunnel the motor home would never have fit!



At the fish hatchery Michael, the head bioligist, is giving us a VIP tour.  John is in red. 

They produce 60,000 pounds of trout to be released into SD waters for fisherman.

Our group is headed to the hatchery building

We walked the raceways that grow the finger lings to release size.

This picture is of rainbow trout from the deck below.  The water is in a sink hole 121 feet deep.

The artist in me clicked some beautiful pictures at that pond.

Spearfish Arrival

We arrived in Spearfish, South Dakota for our volunteer job for the next 6 weeks.  This is our last volunteer job for 2014.  We bit off more than I could chew.  I wish we were headed home but the six weeks will quickly evaporate and we will be heading east.  This seems to be a very nice place to volunteer.  The other volunteers are friendly and welcoming and the place itself is just beautiful.

Our volunteer job for 6 weeks

Our home for 6 weeks

We can hear this stream which is in back of our rig.

Picture taken from the path along the river walk.  Note the fire pit next to us.
That is where the volunteers gather every night.  We have mowed grass!!!!!!!

Last Pictures of Devils Tower

We are off to South Dakota.  Emma and I took a walk and our view of the tower was it coming out of the mist.  It was awesome.  I can see why Natives believe it is a special healing place.  It is magical.

 

The Lakota people call this place Mato Tipila or Bear Lodge.  My favorite legend is:  A little boy with 7 older sisters wanted to scare them.  He prayed to the bear god to turn him into a bear which happened.  He chased his sisters who ran and gathered onto a big rock.  They prayed to the rock to save them.  The rock grew and grew with the bear clawing it.  It grew so high that it flung the 7 sisters into the sky and they are still there today as the 7 sisters constellation.  The younger brother was so tired after clawing the rock he lay down east of the tower and slept never becoming a boy again and he is there today as Bear Buttes.  Isn't that better than the geology story of liquid magma pushing up towards the earth surface?

Sturgis comes to Devils Tower

Wednesday, our last day, cycles from a planned Sturgis Motorcycle Rally came.  It was quite an experience because of the huge number of motorcycles-thousands???.  There was a shuttle because other cars could not park at the top.  We talked to people on the shuttle and we roamed around the tower answering questions and helping the huge crowd.  A Christian Motorcycle Club volunteered for the 16th year to help park bikes at the tower.  They had everything well under control and I enjoyed our last volunteer day. We went out with a bang!!!!!!!!!! Today we turned in everything like keys and uniforms and we are off to South Dakota tomorrow morning.

 

Yellowstone with Family

Where????

Bison forging the Yellowstone River

Moose Mom

Where is the elk herd?

After our daughter and husband arrived we traveled to Yellowstone NP on our 4 days off.  In Cody, where we stayed 3 days, we went to a rodeo.  I did not take my camera.  I wanted to experience it without being behind the lens.  It was lots of fun. Then we went to Yellowstone.  The first day John drove the lower loop with Old Faithful, mudpots, Hayden Valley and huge Yellowstone Lake.  The second day we went north to Mammoth through Lamar Valley. We saw herds of bison, elk, mule deer, a coyote and pups, moose mom and babe, small rodents like weasel and pika,  geese, ducks and pelicans.  John drove all day just stopping at Custer Battlefield arriving late Sunday night at the tower.  It was a wirlwind experience that I think Lisa and Jim enjoyed.  John went back to work after all that driving (back to work to rest).